As the forums these days are a little on the slow side I thought I'd try to start some conversation.

Interested to see what spurred everyone's interest also what about the love of fingerboarding keeps you shredding? Also when you started and any story you'd like to share about the passion.

I'm gonna type mine up later.

What got me into fingerboarding?
I remember my friend who i used to skate with brought a td to school one day. then he bought a berlinwood old mold off of youtube from some guy in greece. it was sick. he stopped skating and finger boarding, but i kept on doing it. i remember watching mikes old videos on youtube, and john cowarts skate videos. those were always sick to watch.

Why you keep finger boarding?
I really like the people I've met and the things that finger boarding has taught me. Ive met some really cool people who ill probably be friends with for a long time, and some cool people I've got to meet in real life. I've only been to one event, (huck jam 4.5) and met todd, kelly anne, grant gibbs, and drew, before he passed away. hopefully the airflo tour makes its stop in Cincinnati this summer. I've learned to keep on trying if i don't land a trick, and I've learned how to make ramps and things. its just a good hobby and fun thing to pass the time on a day when you can't skate.

15 years ago it was just about pretending to do tricks when I was hurt and couldnt do any actual skateboarding. Now I just do it because its fun to do tricks that I think are cool in skateboarding. I basically just do it because its fun. Plain and simple. I am obsessed with skateboarding and fingerboarding really helps keep me positive through the long canadian winters.

I love the fingerboard community. 99% of fingerboarders are so welcoming and accepting and understanding, etc. The 1% are dicks but every community has those. Really though, most are just the nicest dudes you could meet. I've fingerboarded for 5 or 6 years now and seeing the scene change is cool, everybody getting older and all that. It was really sad to see how slow FFI has been, back when I was really active on the internet a few years back it was bumpin. I don't know why it's slowed down. Gotta get everybody fired up again. What got me stoked on fingerboarding was the 20 minute long film called fingers of fury that came out on vhs back in the 90's, pretty sure tech deck sold the tapes. I saw it on youtube though, I hope you've all seen that.. Anyways I just searched "tech deck" up one day on youtube back in grade 6 and it got me hooked. Seeing what could actually be done, it really inspired me to learn how and stick with it, teach myself new stuff. When you start it really does seem like you'll never get it, but then you do. It clicks and you start to improve, and you are constantly learning new stuff, because the possibilities are endless. And that's what was so cool. I don't know. Overall what keeps me hooked on it is just the feeling of landing tricks, learning new ones. I've always been a creative person and to be able to exercise that creativity through fingerboarding is just an awesome thing. And the people.

Well, for me, My cousin had a TechDeck. This was right around when they first came out. 
He used to ride the trucks super loose and they'd always fall off cause of the nuts. 

Fast forward an unknown amount of time, around 1997 I think , I got my first TechDeck. 
Totally thought it was awesome, I used to take it to school and we had this huge concrete full pipes with polished insides for people to sit and chill in. So I used to ride it just about every morning before school, at lunch, after school, whatever. 

Wasn't long after that they started appearing everywhere, Chinese copy's and things started emerging and it made it a lot easier for me to get different wheels etc. Lots of finger bikes and stuff started coming out too, I used to have tons of them cause I used to BMX quite a bit. I remember some of them used to come with "sticky fingers wax" which did exactly that, I remember thinking it was dumb but it used to be kinda cool to use on the big Fingerbike half pipes and stuff to do air tricks. 

So continue on to around 2000 and I was still messing with them, I know I could Ollie at this point, but flip tricks were all random crazy flips. 

Then, around 2002/2003 I hadn't touched my TechDecks for a couple months, I always had them around and stuff though. 
My friend came to stay and had a TechDeck, to his surprise I had a large amount of ramps and obstacles and tons of bikes and TechDecks etc. He was stoked. 

So it was that night that I stumbled upon TechDeck forums, and everything changed. 
I registered with some horrific name, I think it was techsk8ta or something like that. 
Despite actually fingerboarding for somewhere around 6 years, I quickly found out I was a total noob.

Things just went on from there really, I remember getting "sponsored" by this company once, the guy sent me a sponsor pack of 2 TechDecks, I thought that was pretty funny, cause like most companies back then people would always start a company without any products and then hold a massive tryout and then pick people and shut down shortly after. But this guy actually sent me something, so I was still stoked. 

TechDeck forum was like a warzone back then, it was bursting at the seems with hormone fuelled pubescent youngsters, much like myself, claiming to be the king of tech decking or the best company etc etc. 

Before I left the TechDeck forums, I met a guy called Weakfingers (Gary Chin)  People were bitching at him as usual procedure on the TechDeck forums, he wanted to know how to kickflip I think. So I added him on MSN messenger and taught him to kickflip. I couldn't really kickflip very well myself to tell the truth, but I'd seen enough trick tips to be able to recite them. 


I can't remember exactly how I found FFI, but I did manage to get registered first try. 
I was still living back in the UK at this point, and when I found FFI I met some people from the UK online, because up until this point I think everyone I spoke to was American, or just about. 

This is when I got talking to people like Eddie Sharples, Thom Mcinally, Simon Cartledge etc, these guys were always way better than me, I used to talk to Simon all the time, he taught me to heelflip I think. 

It wasn't long before I moved to New Zealand, in early 2004, I now had nobody in my country who fingerboarded at all, but that didn't stop me. I carried on fingerboarding until around late 2007 when I learnt I could get served alcohol in the local pub despite the age being 18. I still had all my stuff and fingerboarded occasionally but I moved out of home in 2008 and didn't really pick up fingerboarding again for a while, kinda moved in and out of it over the last few years leading up to the present day where I'm embracing it as much as ever. 

Congratulations if you read all that. 

That's pretty much my story.

I started fingerboarding "for reals" because a friend of mine was way into it. But before that I skated and when I was a kid I had an active imagination so I would always pretend I was skating spots with my fingers. Then I got one of those keychain ones and messed with that a little. Years later Tech Deck came out and we sold them at the skate shop I was working at. On my down time I learned basic ollies and simple slide tricks on pizza boxes or whatever was around.

After working at the shop I hadn't picked up a fingerboard in years until my buddy reintroduced me to this amazing pastime. While searching for upgrades to my basic complete I discovered the community as well as "how to" vids on making your own fingerboard. I went out, bought some Bondo, veneer, some glue and never looked back.

I love everything about fingerboarding. Its ties to skateboarding, the challenge of learning new tricks, the creative outlet making decks affords me and most of all- the amazing community behind it. I've met some really awesome people this year and I'm continually blown away by how friendly and enthusiastic fingerboarders all over the world are. It's just rad.

I got into fingerboarding from skateboarding .
I always knew that there was the company tech deck but I never knew there was a worldwide scene with dudes from all places and also contests and stuff
I just went into the internet and Google entered finger skateboard .
The first address was black river but when I saw the prices I got like shocked haha I knew when I said to myself " I will never buy a berlinwood or brts " and know I have a lot if them
Haha crazy
Ok then I went to a local shop bought a Bollie deck and after It got snapped from my sister I got my first berlinwood with bolliewheels and propaganda trucks from brr:)
It was so cool to hold one like that in my hands
Then I got more and more into fingerboarding , found more websites, and finally got more into fingerboarding then skateboarding but was still active in sb
I logged in onto German forums read all kinds of Infos discovered fbtv unite and know I am proud to be a part of fingerboarding
The love to It is not made to explain
FB for ever it keeps me going and going the dudes I met the fun and the tricks

I think I started fingerboarding because I thought skateboarding and that stuff was cool (I couldn't skate and I was like 10 years old haha) and one day I saw a Tech Deck and bought it just because I thought it was cool as a little mini prop to have. I think I searched up fingerboarding or something on youtube and found videos of it. I tried to learn how to ollie but I never did so I got a finger bmx haha. I realized that was kinda pathetic as you couldn't use it properly so I decided to actually learn how to ollie and did. Later I bought better gear (probably too good gear way too soon) but I learned many new tricks.

What keeps me fingerboarding is that it's always nice to land cool new tricks you've been working on, all the amazing people you get to know and also because I make fingerboard decks myself.

WOW! So stoked on this taking off. I was a little worried I wouldn't get many replies. Loving everyones story!

Anyways.
What got me into fingerboarding?
Basically I had always bought tech decks and their ramps/parks growing up as toys. Never really used them or atleast not correctly. I was at one of my friends and he had alot of tech decks and we started messing with them doing random tricks and hoping it landed tape up. He had an early model tech deck that had factory white trucks and I thought it was the most insane thing ever. We started custom neon grip tape jobs and painting trucks and matching wheels. Basically we just wanted to have the better looking setup. Eventually we googled simple things like "tech deck trick" and saw that some people had actual control of the board. We watched as many tutorials as we could find for tech decks (not really knowing about "fingerboards"). Finally got ollies and could kinda kickflip I built a bunch of ramps that were damn huge as shit. Got to the point where I wanted to upgrade my shitty tech deck and found some z shred bearing wheels and heated the kicks up. Ended up ordering tons of zshred wheels to just put on tech decks. Kept improving and decided everyone online was using wooden boards so I went for the cheapest option possible. Saved for months to order my first wooden board. Ended up being a close up complete that was almost worse than my tech decks. While constantly watching youtube videos I found you could make fingerboards with note cards and made a bunch of them. Eventually moving up to a random ebay mold and veneer I kept making decks for myself a friends. They got pretty decent but I ended up moving into an apartment where I could no longer make fingerboards. So I started ordering real decks. Paying way too much for a bwom off ebay and a finga deck. Found out about flatface and got lots of good bearing wheels and decks. At this point I had about 4 close friends that were into fingerboarding with me and would spend every weekend at my house with parks set up in my kitchen. Somehow, Tim Lowery found out about FBHQ and I got on here mostly to try to obtain a yellowood through the trade section (which I did thanks to TMG who had probably every badass setup imaginable at the time). Finally I moved back into a house where I was able to make decks again and that's when I started Hard Knox.

What kept me fingerboarding?
There's is so many outlets that fingerboarding brings me. I love how much work and art I could put into a small 5 ply wooden deck. I've met so many awesome people around the world through a small skateboard, which is crazy if you ask me. Like many others have said, it all started and you can hardly pop the board for an ollie but at some point your train your muscles to land kickflips ect. almost easy as cake. I love coming up with a line that I've never tried before and landing it. Actually being able to control a fingerboard is an awesome feeling. It's much like riding a bike it'll always stay with you. I just love throwing down a chill sesh and just having fun. Fingerboard at some point grows into a passion, the people, the products, the work, the reward. It's all just so fun. Not to mention how awesome the community is, it's the only community I've ever been in where everyone supports quality and is actually helpful to newcomers.

When i was like 8/9 people in school were all like pretty much throwing these tech decks around and like letting them roll down slides and stuff, so i went and get one and was completely obsessed with it . I never did any tricks with it because i didn't really know it was possible to do tricks on. I cant really remember what happened after that but all i know is that i stopped using it but i always used to keep it on my windowsill because i always liked the graphic on it.
Anyway... about 3 years later (xmas 2011) i was bored so i just started playing with this tech deck again. So as you do, i looked up 'tech decking' on youtube and then i just all went from there really. Found people like Mike Schneider and blackriver etc...

The endless creativity and people is what keeps me fingerboarding. Its completely blown my mind how many good friends i have made fingerboarding. I have had some of the best times of my life at events and meetups etc. And its never ending, like there is no limit to anything everyone has a unique way of fingerboarding and there are no boundaries and limits. You can do what you want, everyone is different. Its just so rad to see so many people all enjoying this rad thing we all do and feeding off each over in so many different ways. Also fingerboarding branches off in to so many creative things, like i would have never started skating if it was not for fingerboarding.

i was skating for a few years and always just messed around with tech decks. i was watching skate videos one day and came across mike schneiders video "planter mini" some how and was stoked on it. then i spent a while watching fingerboard videos and discovering that it wasnt just tech decks. a month or so later i ordered some stuff from flatface and got my first wooden fingerboard and have been hooked since then.

i think what keeps me goin is all the good times over the years ive had. going to events and meeting new people everytime and also getting to hang with old friends. fingerboarding is cool

I started because my brother once got one because he noticed his friend had one and he thought it looked cool, and i was always wanting ago of his Tech Deck so i got my own ^-^ Then me and my brother were always setting out DVD's and all that and sticking our finger under the tail and lifting it up for an ollie :') Or just randomly flicking and hoping it'd land. Haha. Then my brother became boring and stopped and i carried on being crap. This is in like 2006 or something btw 0_0 Then in 2009 i learn't to ollie and a few more other tricks, could never do a single Kickflip back then though, haha. Then i got a load of BRRs that year and a close-up G3 as my first wooden :PNot long after i'd say in about 2010 i quit and just messed around with a Tech Deck every now and then. Then i started again in 2012 i think, got a flatface g12 complete, got good and I've loved it ever since. I count my fingerboarding experience since 2009 though :Paha because i dunno ¦3 And when i started it again it's because i saw my mates using a 4corner and i never knew they fingerboarded, so i had a load of friends that did it where i used to live and it kept me going...

Just for fun.
The one on the very right is my brothers first and only Tech Deck.
Middle is my first ever one and on left is my second.

Dat cool old ass grip doh

yea... that is it. Sorry if my grammar is awful btw.

So basically I started fingerboarding from skateboarding.My mom showed me skate videos when I was like 5 and she realized that I liked it a lot.I got my first skateboard in the toy shop but at the same time I saw a tech deck on my way out so we decided to buy it.Fast forward two years and I discovered the youtube scene on my computer (well the family computer) I saw mike schneider fbing and decided to buy a wooden fingerboard.My first wooden deck was a redemption 26mm mhc mold.fast forward another 4 years I went to my first event,crossed fingers 2.I had a very good time.Even though my friends who used to fb with me have quit I'm still enjoying it everyday

Well, when I first started hanging out with JimmyKudo he had a Morningwood carbon fiber, and he was so good with it and my initial reaction was "WHOAH WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING?!" and one thing lead to another and that's how I found out that fingerboarding was a thing outside of tech deck. A couple years later I ended up seeing Zac McLean (Woob) around and he's constantly trying to spread fingerboarding and he was like "Hey man check this thing out." And I was like, "Yeah I know. I have a buddy with a Morningwood." And that got HIM excited that there was another person that fingerboarded right in his home town that he was unaware of. He hooked me up with a Berlinwood Oldmold that I still have. And that's that.

I started fingerboarding because i loved, and still do love, skateboarding. Being able to recreate tricks with you fingers i thought was just a crazy, yet awesome idea. I started off with a tech deck and after one of my acquaintances in school told me he had bearing wheels for his fingerboard, i went nuts. I needed to have some of these professional bearing wheels. As i looked into it, i learned that there were actual mini wooden skateboards! I was able to get my hands on an old Close Up/Flatface collaboration deck, that sadly, i have no idea where it is today.

What keeps me fingerboarding is definitely the online forums, the want to try new things, and definitely events. FBHQ keeps me updated on everything fingerboarding. My want to try new things such as decks, wheels, tape, obstacles, is always expanding. There are hundreds of these items that are out in the scene already that i haven't tried. And with new companies making these items, there is always something new to try. Events kind of add up all that is fingerboarding into one. You have a great time hanging with friends, meeting new people, getting to try new items, overall just having a blast with people that share the same interest as you. Every time i go to an event, it somewhat renews my love and passion for fingerboarding. I get home from the event, and it really reminds me of how great fingerboarding really is.

I always thought skateboarding was a sort of idiot thing to do. Heard about all the injuries from it and just seemed like a dumb sport to me.

I can't even recall my first tech deck. I can specifically remember one that may have been my first that was a black label deck. I kind of stole it from my friend's house probably around in 2006 or 2007. I thought it was fun to play with like rolling it on things and I quickly learned how to shuv it but I didn't know that you could actually ollie these things. I never really thought of it much and now that deck is somewhere lost in my basement.

I ended up making a couple of new friends when I reached middle school, one of which was named Christian who fingerboarded with tech decks at school. He ended up giving me a blind tech deck because I always watched him ollie onto his binder and stuff during lunch. This was in 8th grade at this point and people thought we were nerds for playing with little skateboards. I figured out how to ollie over that following weekend and went to school to show it off to Christian. He couldn't do anything other than ollie and shuv it either so it wasn't very impressive for either of us. I didn't learn anything else this time around and eventually my board went back to the archives of my basement.

But in the summer after freshmen year I bought some new tech deck gear, which I feel guilty about making my mom buy. I ended up learning some grinds, the impossible, and the kickflip at this time. I eventually found fingerboard HQ and saw wooden decks and such. I ended up ordering a china complete that summer, and sadly due to lack or financial resources I still use that china board. Luckily I'm getting a berlinwood and some Flatface wheels for this Christmas for sure because I ordered them myself with my moms permission. Anyway, I had figured some stuff out around then but I ended up taking another break until this most recent summer.

In sophomore year of school my friend Austin showed me some of his skateboarding skills. We were hanging out around in the schools lot before a band competition and I watched him ollie this four stair by the band entrance of the school. I was shocked because I had never actually seen somebody do a decent trick on a skateboard in person. Because of this, in May of 2013 I ended up buying a cliche setup and learned how to skate a little. The deck is currently trashed and I'm buying a new one after Christmas. Haha. But yeah, I'm a terrible skater, but I can at least say I can ollie and kind of frontside 180 (more of a frontside 120 if you ask me haha). Anyway during this time I was not fingerboarding anymore but then I remembered that little china complete around in the later summer of this year and I came back to fingerboard hq and have been active here since October.

But yeah, I'll probably be here for a while now that I avidly skate and fingerboard and the fact that every single present of mine this year is skate related (new fingerboard setup, new skate shoes, a penny board).

That is basically my fingerboard life story. I'm pumped for the future.

I got into it through skating kinda. Well, I saw a Tech Decks advert on TV and thought it was coll so I bought one and just played with it.

The fact that I enjoy fingerboarding has kept me doing it, and especially my sponsors and the people I have met over the past (almost) 2 years.. man it's gone fast!

I started with tech decks in the 3rd grade. It started off just a fad, like yu-gi-oh,beyblades and pokemon. we all did it in school and outside of school and whenever we could. Of course at this stage it consisted of us flipping it randomly with our thumbs. One day i decided to type tech deck into youtube and it amazed me how you could flip and ollie and slide without using any fingers. It became my mission to ollie and after a few days i got it! From then we made parks out of cardboard and we would play with em all day.

After a while i discovered mikeschneider on youtube and the first video of his i watched was the video of him and pat mcginn. From there i discovered Black River and i got a Berlin wood elias assmuth ''new mold deck'' back when it was classified as new mold in 2009. Sadly i lost it after a week and my freinds in my housing estate and school moved on so i did too.

Only this october while looking for halloween decorations and i found it. I was so pumped that i decided to play with it and ive been progressing since then.

I started fingerboarding like 3 years ago, when my friend and I used our brother's Tech Decks. She bought a Berlinwood, but I quit before that. I recently started picking it up again this year, buying my first wooden complete. Then I moved onto other fingerboards, joining FBHQ at the same time.

I keep fingerboarding because it's fun. Also, FBHQ is awesome since I love joining online communities and forums. And now here I am!

In 7th grade I saw some kids have them in my classes and since I had never seen anything like that before I got super excited about them.

Since I'd already been skateboarding since the 3rd-4th grade I had to get into mini-skateboards too!

The first year or so I started fingerboarding I didn't even know how to ollie. This was before youtube! Then one day I saw this one kid, who I hated because he was a bully and he could ollie over a soda can!

When I saw that I said to myself "There is no way that HE is going to be better than ME in fingerboarding!!!!". So later that night I got out a can of beans on my kitchen counter and just tried and tried over and over again to ollie over it. After many tries I finally did it! WHOOOO!!!

Ever since then I've been fingerboarding pretty regularly however, there were a few times when I just didn't do it as much. This was because I didn't know about the online fingerboarding community.

Then one really really horrible thing happened........

I went onto the Tech Deck site one day to find out that they were doing a summer 2011 tour! A first of its kind event!!! And they were coming to my city!!!!!!

Then I looked at the date and realized that I missed it by 12 days.......

This made me really mad and angry because I had NEVER been to an event before and this event was less than 15 min drive from my house. It happened right around the corner from me and the only reason why I didn't go was because I didn't know about it.

This whole fiasco let to me finding out about all of the wooden deck companies and THIS message board, which got be BACK into fingerboarding more than ever before!!!!

I recently went to the Texas Rendezvous 3 and I will probably be hosting the Texas Rendezvous 4.

I have an idea on where I want to do the Texas Rendezvous 4, the location being South Side Skate Park in Houston, but I haven't talked to them yet as I am waiting until the holidays are over to do that.